Not so many years ago, AT&T along with GM and very few other of the behemoths were the most frequently taught models of corporate governance in many/most top MBA programs in the country.
AT&T served millions of businesses in what was then their core telephone business. An AT&T customer, my company’s international business chewed up a fair bit of telephone dollars; a significant expenditure for us. In the grand scheme of AT&T’s business customers, including most if not all Fortune 100s, we were likely insignificant.
When our AT&T contract came up for annual renewal, for reasons unclear I ventured forth to read their multi-page standard contract. Did not get much past the recitals in the first couple pages. I declared that there was no construct under which we would ever sign that contract. Knowing my way a tad around complex “documents”, I opined that among the army of internal and external AT&T lawyers, there was not one so limited as to write such obfuscated language without purpose. Yet, clearly management signed-off on the language.
We notified our AT&T representative that we would not re-up our contract. Upon their insistence, we offered that their standard business contract was by design obfuscating. Also, that perhaps various paragraphs might be illegal in some fifty states.
Moving the business was a no brainer. Although I insisted that talking to me about their contract would be entirely a waste of their time, I consented to a very brief meeting with AT&T folks. The following day, really, I met with two very formal and appropriately attired AT&T Vice Presidents who came from Chicago to L.A. just to talk that over. To be accurate, a Senior V.P. and a V.P., tasked with corporate compliance and the setting of rates in the business customer business, respectively.
They asked my forbearance with my time and the tearing up of the unsigned contract, and asked to review my issues with that. I assured them that whatever my take was just that, mine. I opined that their contract was misleading and obfuscating. And that it relied on would-be customers to ignore all those many verbal calisthenics laden paragraphs that I picked on. Also that I was neither their or anybody else’s lawyer. I again asserted that they had wasted their trip.
Then the punchline.
The senior guy, stated: “AT&T is a righteous company. That is not how we want to do business.”
They asked that I re-write all the paragraphs that I found “objectionable”. Absurd. But … They insisted on their desire to make necessary changes and that I would be handsomely compensated for my observations and effort. Next day, back in Chicago, they sent me an “affidavit” of sorts to absolve me of any liability were they to use my language to their own detriment. Whoa baby.
I wrote a few paragraphs in as ordinary language as I could muster; four hours of that. They adopted all those. And we did not pay an AT&T bill for over two years. Yes. That was some expensive lawyering for them. At least “at retail” for us. I confess to having a big smile on my face doing the writing.
So… Today, AT&T has nearly half share of mobile wireless services in the U.S. How righteous are they now?
Below are excerpts from various sources in re AT&T’s new take on “righteousness”, effecting a large percentage of their 230,000 employees. Upon reading their Listen Understand Act, one might conclude that by its own admission, AT&T fancies itself as the unfortunate employer of many new, much improved, yet still despicable KKK members.
To digress, I must quote from a previous blog On Critical Race Theory:
Although without any doubt, the Unites States is the least racist, most inclusive country in the world, it is disingenuous to assert that there has been unfettered equal opportunity for all races. However much progress that has been made, there is still alarming de jure and de facto discrimination in our society. De jure fixes and progress, I opine, are the lesser trick to execute. It is easier to find a political constituency for most things than making the most of the legislation. De facto is a much more elegant problem. Much of that, regrettably, is in fact generationally endemic. The trick is finding the path to that incredibly massive and necessary education paradigm.
That would be one side of the coin.
The other, is AT&T’s Listen Understand Act. How proud Mao must be! AT&T is now an enlightened re-education camp! I know: it would be in poor form to reenact Mao’s murderous ways. But, you get it. [I will forgo the quotes since the information below is second or third hand.]
∙ Employees are asked to sign a loyalty pledge in re. the “Act”.
∙ The “Act” is based on core principles of critical race theories.
∙ American Racism is a uniquely white trait.
∙ Managers at AT&T are now assessed annually on diversity issues, with mandatory
participation in programs such as discussion groups, book clubs, mentorship programs, and race
reeducation exercises.
∙ White employees are tacitly expected to confess their complicity in “white privilege” and
“systemic racism,” or they will be penalized in their performance reviews.
∙ Employees are challenged to renounce their “whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white
supremacy.
∙ Whiteness is one of the biggest and most long-running scams ever perpetrated.
Now…
As a lifetime champion of diversity and inclusivity in all matters of race, religion, gender and ethnicity, the last item on the abbreviated list above really frosted my otherwise open mind. Who the hell is John Stankey, CEO of AT&T, to characterize me, a foreign born, proud naturalized citizen of the United States Of America a SCAMMER? A RACE SCAMMER?
What say you? And what say our brethren, the proud, hard and honest working, achieving, generous in kind and spirit minorities who Stankey states that we are now and have been scamming from birth?
Yo, John. If you can tear yourself away from the golf-course or your woke confessional long enough, lets you and me have a chat. Know that I, as well as overwhelmingly most of your employees of all races, genders, ethnicities, are “all in” for welcome enlightenment. As long as you treat all of us, ALL OF US, with respect and dignity.